Breaking the ice

Firstly, a heartfelt thanks for so many lovely comments yesterday. I'm sure there'll be moments ahead where we question our sanity, but for now we remain very pleased.

A l-o-n-g day round trip to Plas y Brenin the National Mountain Centre in North Wales today, via Lymme to collect an injured colleague. Nearly 400 miles and minutes short of 12 hours, but very very productive.

When I was asked to be a Director and then Chair of the Board for our Association it was dysfunctional to the point of failure. Lawsuits, infighting and relationships with stakeholders strained to the point of breaking. At times it seemed an impossible task.
I settled the lawsuit and stamped on the fighting, but it was clear some problems ran deeper. We've restructured our governance and moved to output based projects, but still something wasn't quite right.
This year with all my enforced spare time I've made a point of getting into the day to day operational mechanics. Our admin functionality is mainly provided via a service contract with Mountain Training - and their staff have had a torrid time over the last few years dealing with a persistent but small minority of our members who seem to think rules (&manners) don't apply to them.
I've taken ownership of each 'difficult' case and seem a marked difference in both attitude and behaviour when they've understood they need to deal with me. Ive needed to be blunt, erudite, assertive and conciliatory, but I've also concluded that in some cases the fact I'm male and have a (perceived) rank has instigated the change. Very very sad.
I've had people tell me that cpd doesn't apply to them (a condition of professional membership) or they'll do it later or that I'm just being (insert variety of rude words) awkward. Sadly those few people, who by and large are male and of a similar age, are no longer members. It's always sad to lose members, but I believe we'll be the richer for it. Each year we're seeing an increase in uptake of our Award, and each year our membership adds expertise, enthusiasm and respect.

Sat with our support staff, their managers and coworkers today, the sense of change was palpable. I explained that as a membership organisation one of our primary roles is to support each other, and that includes our partners and coworkers. I was very pleased to present each of the office staff with embroidered tops saying "Team BAIML" and their individual names. Then we took then for lunch.

As we walked to the canteen (OK, OK, bar) I popped out to catch these guys breaking through the ice on a tough looking kayak leaders course.

As I returned I heard laughter and smiling faces; someone at the bar asked what was going on; one of the office staff replied "that's the Team from BAIML"

Later we signed a new three year contract, as we (somewhat rather formally) shook hands the new office manager said "thank you, it means a lot"

There's just an inkling that the tide has turned, happy days.